


Permafrost

by acornsandravens



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AxGSS, Canon Compliant, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-14
Updated: 2014-02-14
Packaged: 2018-01-12 11:31:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acornsandravens/pseuds/acornsandravens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Arya wondered if she stayed here long enough if the frosts would settle on her, too, the way they sometimes did on her sleeping furs on cold mornings when they travelled, if she might wake to find her cheeks painted with flecks of ice like cut crystal and her eyelashes frozen into icicles."</p><p>Shameless excuse for a fluffy wintry cuddling fic based on the prompt for February's axgss. Prompt: Plead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Permafrost

She didn’t often cry. It served no purpose but to make the others think her weak for indulging her feelings and fears by giving them voice, and she couldn’t afford for anyone to think her weak. She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve.

It was stupid, though. If any one of them had shed a tear thinking about the battles they’d fought they’d think it noble, not weak. Not afraid.

Arya straightened out against the doorway of the stable and hugged her knees to her chest for the warmth as much as the comfort and heaved a sigh. There wasn’t even a reason for tears, at least no more than any other night. She had food in her belly and they had beds to sleep in. She’d had much less in much worse places, but there was a slow gnawing pain in her chest and a crushing loneliness that only felt stronger sitting in the inn listening to the men drinking and laughing and trying their luck with the bawdy tavern girls.

The stars even seemed lonely hanging above the village when she stared up at them, and the pale silvery face of the moon was cold and unsympathizing, turning the stretch of land between the stable and the little inn into a vast blue waste kissed with frost. Arya wondered if she stayed here long enough if the frosts would settle on her, too, the way they sometimes did on her sleeping furs on cold mornings when they travelled, if she might wake to find her cheeks painted with flecks of ice like cut crystal and her eyelashes frozen into icicles.

The sudden light spilling out of the inn’s doorway startled her from her thoughts, its beacon of warm firelight sending the yard into a sudden summer for an instant before the door closed again with a dull thud, cutting off both the light and the murmur of drunken voices coming from within. Arya looked away quickly and set to wiping her eyes furiously in an attempt to dash the signs of her tears off her cheeks before she was found.

Gendry always seemed to know where to find her. She could tell it was him even from a distance from his familiar shape and the loud crunch of his heavy feet on the frozen grass as he came towards her, holding a small lantern high and casting it back and forth as he searched. He’d never learned how to move light-footed no matter how much she tried to show him and a rueful smile flickered across her lips at his customary stomping coming nearer.

“Arya?” he called softly. The sound carried across the hushed landscape and echoed slightly, shot with concern. One of the horses recognized his voice too and whickered low in greeting, and Arya watched as Gendry turned toward the sound, the broad expanse of him only half lit by his lantern.

She could have hidden, but it was only Gendry, and as it was he nearly stepped on her before he ever saw her at his feet.

“Seven Hells, Arya, what are you doing down there?” he exclaimed, lifting the lantern so they could see one another more plainly. “It’s too cold to be out after the sun’s gone down.”

He scowled up at the inky sky in reprimand for the darkness, hunching into his cloak when the wind blew. The first faint traces of ruddy color were already showing on his cheeks, but Gendry was southron born and she was a Stark, made of sterner stuff. She almost felt bad for making him come outside in the weather after her, but then she decided he hadn’t _really_ needed to come looking.

“Sitting,” she mumbled, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. Her voice sounded rough and strangled. “Put the light out, you’re waking the horses.”

He looked between her and the light again and then blew it out, hanging the smoking lantern on a hook next to the door before he sank to the dirty straw beside her. “You’re missing Tom’s singing,” he told her. “He’s had half a jug of wine to himself and getting bawdier by the minute.”

“Maybe it’s good I’m out here, then.” she said, absently picking at a frayed place in her breeches. “I thought you didn’t like for me to hear the bawdy songs.”

Whenever Tom sang the one about the baker’s son and the loaf of bread Gendry always turned crimson and looked like he wanted to clap his hands over her ears.

“I thought it might cheer you up.”

“I don’t need cheering.” An ill-timed sniffle betrayed her.

“Then come inside and get warm at least. The wind’s shifted; it’ll snow by morning.”

“I will in a while. It’s hardly cold when you’re used to it.”

Gendry shook his head and lifted himself halfway to fish around in his pockets. He pressed a rag into her hand after a moment’s search. “Stubborn.”

She chose to take it as a compliment coming from him and blew her nose while Gendry reached for the ties of his cloak.

“Oh, don’t.” She reached for his sleeve to stop him. “It’s _not_ cold.” She insisted again, a bit pathetically.

Gendry grabbed her hand and took it in his one of his, pressing her fingers into his own with a disapproving cluck. “Can you even feel these little things? They’re like ice.”

“Of course I can feel them.” she mumbled, but didn’t draw away. His hands were much larger than hers and warmer too, and he was slowly rubbing the circulation back into her with gentle care.

 “What are you crying for?” he asked, not unkindly. Not in the jeering sort of way any of the others would have.

“I’m _not_ crying.” she said haughtily, in a froggy liar’s voice.

“You were, though.” he argued.

She resisted the initial urge to pull away. In the inky darkness she decided there wasn’t any shame in it, crying, and Gendry wouldn’t tease her for it. “I don’t know why,” she sniffled. “It wasn’t anything that happened. I just… I felt like it, is all.”

He didn’t press, nodding quietly and still holding her hands in his. “I’ll stay with you until you’re ready to go back inside.”  Gendry lifted her hands closer to his mouth and blew a breath onto them. The warmth sank into her skin and spread like melting wax, replacing the pins and needles and numbness with tender feeling.

When he let go at last Arya stuffed her hands under her arms to maintain their temperature and settled herself back against the thick oak beam behind her. “You should go back in, Gendry. I’ll be fine sitting here. There’s no one out and around to bother me.”

“Save for me,” he teased, bumping her shoulder with his. “Someone needs to see to bothering you. Besides, I’m sick of Tom’s singing. I’ve heard every song he knows and plenty he makes up as he goes along.”

“You don’t have to.” she mumbled.

In spite of her protests he unfastened his cloak and draped it over both of them, the scent of forest and smoke and _Gendry_ wrapping around her with the wool. “I’ll stay.”

Arya knew that he meant it. She didn’t need to see the sincerity in his eyes or the contortion of worry on his already somewhat solemn features to believe that he would. He’d sit beside her until morning if she asked, and a swell of _feeling_ overtook that terrible gnawing in her chest at his quiet promise.

She’d thought she’d been done with tears, but she felt them pool against her lashes again all the same.  She wanted to send him away halfheartedly; back to the cozy fireplace and the few comforts the inn afforded that he was giving up to stay by her side, but when she tried to talk all that came out was a muffled sob that she choked back too late.

She realized she didn’t want for him to leave even if it was selfish to keep him beside her, and then she was crying again just like she’d never stopped, blubbering pathetically into the already sodden rag he’d handed to her and still not sure why the tears had come in the first place.

Though she doubted he’d ever dealt with anyone weeping like she was before he seemed to know what to do, even if the touch of his hand against hers was shy.

“Don’t go away,” she choked out at last, and she felt his fingers twitch against hers before he spoke, his voice low and urgently reassuring.

“I wouldn’t.” he promised.

She turned towards him like she always had when it was only the two of them, curling against his chest and letting her head fall on his shoulder. He flinched when her cold damp cheek hit his neck.

“Arya, you’re freezing.”

“I’m fine.” she hiccupped, her arms working their way beneath the cloak and around Gendry’s middle to hold onto him. He didn’t seem to know what to do while she cried into his ear so he patted her back gently at first, like he’d comfort a skittish animal. Eventually his arms came around her and stayed there while her tears ran themselves dry onto his shirt, and if he minded he made no show of it, mumbling in a soothing drone with words she only half heard.

He held her like a child, and though she was nearly grown she felt small and protected pressed against his chest with his strong arms wrapped around her. It was a strange and unfamiliar feeling, letting anyone see her like this. Letting anyone comfort her was stranger still after so long, but it was almost like a relief beneath the faint sting of embarrassment when Gendry said soft things to her and cossetted her in a manner as unfamiliar to her as it was to him.

“Are you certain nothing happened? No one did anything that upset you?” he asked after a quiet moment, when her crying had stopped and only the sound of her harsh breathing broke the stillness.

There was an edge to his voice when he asked, and while she’d never needed him to fight her fights for her the tight clipped note in his tone said he was more than willing to go to blows over whatever slight he imagined had hurt her.

“It was nothing.”

He nodded, and his chin tipped forward to rest on the crown of her head. The stubble on his chin prickled and his breath was warm and humid when it found her scalp. Arya thought for an instant that she felt his mouth brush softly against her hair but it happened too quickly to be certain and she could hardly _ask_ if it had.

“Well, go on and cry, then,” he told her, leaning back against the doorway and settling her further into his arms until her hands knotted in the front of his shirt and a shaky sigh escaped her lips. She waited for a fresh wave of emotion to sweep over her, but all she felt was the rise and fall of his breathing and the sharp feeling of the frosty air in her own lungs.

“I don’t think I need to cry anymore.” she admitted after a few more sniffles. Neither of them made any attempt to move. She felt more comfortable outside in the bitter air huddled under his threadbare cloak than she had inside in front of the inn’s hearth, shimmering with blazing coals and crackling cheerfully.

And Gendry stayed anyway, just as he said he would. After another long stretch Arya knew he must have been getting cold too, but he didn’t say anything to hurry her.

Finally, she reluctantly decided staying out any longer might result in frostbite. “We should go back inside,” she ventured, matter-of-factly. “They’ll miss us eventually. When the wine’s gone.”

When she peeked up at him, the eerie half dark of an almost full-moon reflecting from the snow cast just enough light for her to see the cant of his brows when he frowned, little more than a quirk at the corner of his mouth before he hid it away from her. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten in trouble for things that were Arya’s fault, truly, and they usually cost him a cuffing from Lem. Lucky Gendry didn’t seem to mind as much as he used to. “They will. Sometime before morning, anyway.”

They were both decided, then. All that was left was to stand and give him back his cloak and pick their way across the yard and slip back inside to the warmth and the menagerie of drunken sounds. Together this time. Only she didn’t care about the beds and the hearths and the plump straw tick mattresses; she wanted to feel real and whole and important to someone and this was the only place she’d found since leaving Winterfell where she had any chance of finding that again.

“Gendry?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you for staying with me. Only…”

“What is it?”

“Don’t tell any of them I cried, and…” she couldn’t find the words for whatever else it was she wanted, but she was sure someday one of them would figure it out. Arya buried her nose back against the side of his neck with a sigh. “Please?”

He didn’t ask what he was promising, just murmured in ascent and hesitantly rubbed a circle over her shoulders, and the stillness settled over the two of them again just as before.  His arms didn’t feel so tense around her now. He even seemed comfortable in spite of her weight in his lap and the hard, frozen ground beneath them. Never mind that it had started snowing and neither of them had chosen to acknowledge it.

 “We might stay a few more moments,” Gendry ventured, as Arya tightened her arms around him to fight back a shiver. “Then we’ll go back in.”

“Yes, just a little while longer,” she said, her head against his chest, “Please.”


End file.
